Cricket

Cricket is the most wonderful entertainment in the world!

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 22-yard 20-metre pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat and running between the wickets, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this by preventing the ball from leaving the field, and getting the ball to either wicket and dismiss each batter so they are "out". Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, and by the fielding side either catching the ball after it is hit by the bat and before it hits the ground, or hitting a wicket with the ball before a batter can cross the crease in front of the wicket. When ten batters have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles. The game is adjudicated by two umpires, aided by a third umpire and match referee in international matches. They communicate with two off-field scorers who record the match's statistical information.

Forms of cricket range from Twenty20, with each team batting for a single innings of 20 overs, to Test matches played over five days. Traditionally cricketers play in all-white kit, but in limited overs cricket they wear club or team colours. In addition to the basic kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused by the ball, which is a hard, solid spheroid made of compressed leather with a slightly raised sewn seam enclosing a cork core layered with tightly wound string.

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Cricket is a game full or forlorn hopes and sudden dramatic changes of fortune

The earliest reference to cricket is in South East England in the mid-16th century. It spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, with the first international matches in the second half of the 19th century. The game's governing body is the International Cricket Council ICC, which has over 100 members, twelve of which are full members who play Test matches. The game's rules, the Laws of Cricket, are maintained by Marylebone Cricket Club MCC in London.

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Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" sphere that basically involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement; others include baseball which shares many similarities with cricket, both belonging in the more specific bat-and-ball games category, golf, hockey, tennis, squash, badminton and table tennis In cricket's case, a key difference is the existence of a solid target structure, the wicket originally, it is thought, a "wicket gate" through which sheep were herded, that the batsman must defend.

CRICKET IS THE MOST WONDERFUL ENTERTAINMENT IN THE WORLD

  • Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 22-yard 20-metre pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat and running between the wickets, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this by preventing the ball from leaving the field, and getting the ball to either wicket and dismiss each batter so they are "out". Means of dismissal include being bowled.
by Hetmayar Forms of cricket range from Twenty20, with each team batting for a single innings of 20 overs, to Test matches played over five days

Although the main object of the game has always been to score the most runs, the early form of cricket differed from the modern game in certain key technical aspects; the North American variant of cricket known as wicket retained many of these aspects. The ball was bowled underarm by the bowler and along the ground towards a batsman armed with a bat that, in shape, resembled a hockey stick; the batsman defended a low, two-stump wicket; and runs were called notches because the scorers recorded them by notching tally sticks.

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In 1611, the year Cotgrave's dictionary was published, ecclesiastical court records at Sidlesham in Sussex state that two parishioners, Bartholomew Wyatt and Richard Latter, failed to attend church on Easter Sunday because they were playing cricket. They were fined 12d each and ordered to do penance. This is the earliest mention of adult participation in cricket and it was around the same time that the earliest known organised inter-parish or village match was played – at Chevening, Kent.

Cricket remained a low-key local pursuit for much of the 17th century. It is known, through numerous references found in the records of ecclesiastical court cases, to have been proscribed at times by the Puritans before and during the Commonwealth The problem was nearly always the issue of Sunday play as the Puritans considered cricket to be "profane" if played on the Sabbath, especially if large crowds or gambling were involved According to the social historian Derek Birley, there was a "great upsurge of sport after the Restoration" in 1660.

03 Comments

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    Rosalina Kelian
    19th May 2025 Reply

    The Hambledon Club was founded in the 1760s and, for the next twenty years until the formation of Marylebone Cricket Club MCC and the opening of Lord's Old Ground in 1787, Hambledon was both the game's greatest club and its focal point.

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      Rosalina Kelian
      19th May 2025 Reply

      The most famous player of the 19th century was W. G. Grace, who started his long and influential career in 1865. It was especially during the career of Grace that the distinction between amateurs and professionals became blurred by the existence.

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    Rosalina Kelian
    19th May 2025 Reply

    Cricket entered a new era in 1963 when English counties introduced the limited overs variant. As it was sure to produce a result, limited overs cricket was lucrative and the number of matches increased. The first Limited Overs International was played.

03 Comments